Whenever a hand-held light is used for emergency illumination, once the power is connected, the body of the light has to be positioned properly and its head portion has to be turned and aimed at a given angle of elevation so as to cover the various areas that need to be illuminated in an emergency situation. When a hand-held light is used as a working light, it also needs to be capable of being turned and adjusted for angle of elevation from time to time because of space limitations that are encountered.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,447,863 discloses a hand-held light in which the front end of the housing is furnished with two legs; the ends of the legs have respective pins inserted into the holes in the interior of the head that permit the head to be moved on a center line formed by the pins for an elevation angle displacement along a round locus. Since the head is pivoted on the pins, the head cannot closely contact the housing and the handle because such contact would prevent the head from being rotated smoothly.
Moreover, the devices in the aforesaid patent can only be moved up and down for adjustment of the angle of elevation, without providing a horizontally lateral adjustment. Thus, these devices cannot illuminate the space on both sides of the light, and, therefore, do not meet the requirements for providing satisfactory emergency illumination. Also, the upper arcuate surface of the rear half of the head is marred by slits, which detract from the appearance of the light. If the slits are very short, so as to be easily concealed, the appearance of the light may not be jeopardized, but the adjustment of the angle of elevation that is provided will be limited. In addition, the legs are susceptible to breakage because they are too long to extend into the interior of the head.